Page 113 - Reflections on St. Joseph

However, we cannot allow ourselves to be blind to the point of losing ourselves in an unquestioned
past. To think of the Feast of the Holy Spouses in the Year of St. Joseph obliges us to examine our
community life as it is today, in its social and ecclesial contexts. We cannot pretend to continue
living as if nothing impacted our lives, more than past generations could, with the influence of
persons like Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault... and events like Vatican II and the various reactions
it stirred up and the denunciations in our times of the various abuses of power, etc...

For some time, not only the context in which we live has changed, but our very concept of God
and ways of relating to Him as well. Once upon a time obedience meant unconditional
submission to the mediations between men and God: the Church, superiors, various
authorities... The model was the obedience of a child, rooted in a misunderstood spiritual
infancy. Today we are called more than ever to an obedience that is intelligent and active,
which becomes responsible participation. We are humbled in recognizing that we are still far
from this. Keeping with our previous image, we are no longer children, because we have lost
our innocence: we notice people’s defects and those of institutions, which do not allow us to
accept uncritically the mediations of the past. However, neither are we adults capable of
managing our relations with maturity, able to assume the consequences of our choices. What
are we then? I would say we are adolescents. We are no longer children, but not yet adults.
When we decide to “remain in the Temple”, we certainly still want to hear the tender words of
a loving mother, but we also want to be heard with our explanations by a silent father.

We know that the superior has the grace of state, but this doesn’t make him an angel, and does
not exempt him from being subject to his defects and from every urge of ambition, pursuing a
career, of imposing himself, of seeking money, of ingratiating highly placed persons and other
like things. Even the Church, moved by the emergence of scandals like that of the “ Maciel Case”
seems to have re-considered its once well consolidated practice of always supporting the
superior, something which recent reporting has noted. Thus, while members of a community
are indeed moved by the desire to serve God authentically, yet they perceive obstacles due to
egoism, pride, individualism and indifference towards others. Today we are called to take up
our Religious Life with personal responsibility without an unproductive fideism.

So how does a 21st century man live his relationship with God? Here too we are in an adolescent
phase. We have moved beyond the stage of the fear of hell which kept us good. The appeals of
preachers to the justice of God and the relative threats of His implacable punishments is no
longer helpful, except to produce ongoing feelings of guilt which still do not eliminate present
occasions of sin. As children who are about to become adults, we do not want to sin, but to
experience the good things of life, pushing ourselves to the very limits between our freedom
and what is prohibited.

In the area of sexuality, for example, once upon a time the Church sought to regulate an
abundance of particulars, while today it is considered rather a sphere of clearly personal
decision. However, it has also lead to a greater sensitivity to other people’s pain, to respect, to
the suffering of specific groups, to discrimination of every kind, to racism, to tolerance, to
differences, to ecology...

The realization that we have our rights does not permit us to passively accept any kind of
mistreatment, psychological violence or humiliation (which was once an integral part of

Reflections on st. joseph 89